By Sarah Nightingale, UC Riverside UC Riverside alumnus and friend Arthur D. (Art) Riggs, a pioneering researcher and expert in diabetes who helped launch the biotechnology industry, died March 23, 2022. He was 82. A world-renowned geneticist at City of Hope in Duarte, Calif., for 53 years, Riggs’ discoveries have impacted the lives of diabetes, […]
Sweeney Granite Mountains Desert Research Center
Retired Riverside faculty fund Advancing Inclusivity Internship
By Kathleen Wong, UC Natural Reserve System Thanks to a gift from retired UC Riverside faculty, the UC Riverside Natural Reserve System is offering an internship for undergraduates to participate in summer field research at one or more of the campus’s natural reserves. The Advancing Inclusivity Internship will provide diverse students from Southern California universities […]
Delivering environmental data from the NRS
By Kathleen Wong, UC Natural Reserve System Climate is the hottest topic in California these days. As global warming heats up the West, it’s set off a cascade of effects ranging from toxic algal blooms, to tree die-offs, to wildfires of unprecedented size and ferocity. The situation has everyone asking the same question: what is […]
State funds secure buildings and water for the Granites
Prop. 84 helped fund new water sources, new housing, and meeting space, and made problematic buildings habitable again.
NRS reserves adapt to coronavirus shutdown
By Kathleen Wong, UC Natural Reserve System Spring is prime time around the University of California Natural Reserve System. As winter recedes, and skies dry, scientists and students alike start migrating to the protected lands of the network’s 41 reserves. Field stations bustle with university classes on field trips, who rub shoulders with faculty and […]
Sun protection for mosses and records of paleo climate: the 2018-19 Mathias Graduate Student Research Grant awards
The tiny mosses that glue desert soils together spend the majority of their days dormant—the better to withstand a harsh environment. Yet within seconds of absorbing water, the crumbly wisps of brown green up in a frenzy of photosynthetic activity. How these hardy desert residents withstand the harsh UV rays of the sun while essentially […]
Granite Mountains plants at UC Botanical Garden
by Vanessa Handley, Director of Collections and Research, UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley Excerpted from the Fall 2017 edition of the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden Newsletter In April 2017, a team from the Garden traveled to the east Mojave Desert for a productive stint of field work. Our base was the Sweeney Granite Mountains Desert […]
NRS hosts earthquake warning system sensors
A major effort to warn Californians about impending earthquakes is coming to the NRS. Scientists from UC Berkeley are installing seismometers at four reserves this fall as part of an earthquake early warning (EEW) system for the entire West Coast. Called ShakeAlert, the system will detect the first rumbles of an earthquake, predict its intensity, […]